Revolutionary Magic (with Bonus Content) (8 page)

I placed my foot on the first step, finding the spot the plank was supported by a crossbeam to reduce the noise. Keeping one foot on the far right of the step near the banister and the other near the wall, I moved upward at a steady pace.

I heard Cornelius cry out, a whimpering moan that could have been an evocation from a dream, but I decided there'd been too many signs for me to ignore and burst up the stairs, keeping knees high so I didn't trip on the hem of my dress.

The pounding of my feet announced my arrival as I shouldered through the partially open bedroom door.

I froze upon seeing the creature standing menacingly over Cornelius Bennett, whose gaze was vacant and glassy in the moonlight coming through the window. The creature hunched, its shoulders angular and above the line of its neck, like the tip of a bird's scapula.

A bubbling hiss came out the round orifice where a mouth should have been. A ring of pointed teeth circled the lipless horror. A slender pointed tongue snaked out, tasting the air.

When the stink of rotting oranges hit me, I almost passed out from delirium. It was as if my thoughts had been doused in pitch.

I pointed the pistol at the bald horrible creature that wore the garb of a common Philadelphian.

"Back fiend," I said, though I knew the damage to Cornelius had already been done. "Away from him."

It tilted its head at me in a curious motion, as if it was amused I was standing up to it.

When it took a step towards me, I shot it. The blast filled the room with its clamor, my ears ringing in the aftermath. As the imprint of muzzle-fire faded from sight, I knew that I was in trouble.

The creature straightened, revealing an unexpected height. The hiss that emanated from its orifice was either laughter or a threat.

Over the initial fright from seeing the otherworldly being, I noticed details that had escaped me earlier. An oval stone was embedded in the back of one of its elongated hands. The stone could have been the twin of the one I saw on the strange gauntlet.

As I stared longer, I realized that a faint glowing energy surrounded the creature. Was it possible this barrier had protected it from my pistol fire? I had no choice but to assume so by its unblemished front.

The creature lifted its arm and the faint energy sucked inward, towards the stone. Then it pointed its arm at me, a bluish lightning springing forth and surrounding me in debilitating agony.

If I screamed, I didn't know. The pain was like having knives jabbed into the joints in my knees and elbows, between the soft flesh and the bones.

When I awoke, the creature was above me. My weapons lay on the other side of the room. It'd kicked them away, not that it would have mattered. I felt too weak to move.

As it leaned over me, and the darkness mercifully hid its horrible mouth, I heard sniffing and imagined its flapless nostrils flaring.

I expected the embrace of oblivion, but dogs’ barking brought the creature's head up to gaze out the window. It sounded like people roused converging on the house.

A hiss issued forth angrily, and the creature stepped away from me. Then, I swear on the memory of Catherine, a glowing portal sprung from the stone to appear in midair, and the creature stepped through and disappeared.

I saw the same light appear at the back of the house. I struggled to my knees in time to see the portal disappear, illuminating the fleeing form of the creature.

Shakily, I climbed to my feet, shoved my weapons beneath the bed (I could retrieve them later), and escaped downstairs and out the back door right before the neighbors converged on the house.

When two men came around the corner with a lantern, I feigned at banging on the back door, calling out Cornelius' name as if I knew him.

"Quickly, quickly, friends," I said to the two men as firmly as I could, though I desperately wanted to collapse on the stone path. "Something has happened inside. I fear for Cornelius."

The first man tested the door and, finding it open, went inside with lantern held high. When the second went in, shouting Cornelius' name, I fled down the path and went straight to the Franklin Estate.

Chapter Seven

"You were a fool to enter Cornelius' house," said Adam Smith, his lips curling in a sneer. "Are you incapable of taking direction or was that your bloody nobility seeping through?"

My face was so hot my lips were numb. I knew he was provoking me, but I couldn't withhold the barely disguised anger.

"I risked my life because Mr. Bennett was in danger, and in doing so, caught glimpse of our foe," I said. "You should be thanking me."

"Thanking you?" mocked Smith. "Would I thank an elephant for trampling a garden? We need subtlety, Princess, or does that notion elude you? Yes, you spied this creature, confirming its existence"—Smith raised his voice until it was almost a shout—"but now it knows we're tracking it. For all we know it's left the city and returned to its masters and we'll have no further opportunity to discover its purpose. One man's memories was not worth that price."

Morning light filtered through the curtains. A heavy exhaustion leeched my limbs as I considered my response.

"I refuse to accept the idea that I should have done nothing," I said. "All courses of action are risky. Maybe if I'd tried to return to the estate, it would have spied my exit and thus had the advantage of information. And how like an economist to take sides with the needs of the many over the one."

Ben Franklin watched us without comment. He didn't give even a hint to which way he was swayed. He stood on the other side of his parlor and sipped tea as if we were merely discussing the weather.

I tried to keep my gaze from flitting to him. My argument had to stand on its own without support, or Smith would not respect my tenuous position in the Society. As I watched Smith's eyes bug out with the effort of containing his anger, I wondered if it were a lost cause.

My patience was rewarded when Smith turned to Franklin. "Have you no opinion, Ben? This woman risked everything against orders. How can you consider her continued existence in the Society if she cannot abide by its rules?"

Ben set his teacup on the end table. "It was foolish to go into the house alone," he said. "The result could have been disastrous."

The recrimination was a spike in the gut, further hammered when Adam Smith pumped his fist in my direction.

"Ha! I knew he'd eventually see the folly of your membership," said Smith triumphantly.

My stomach twisted with the fear that I would be banished from the group. For the first time in my life, I'd been a part of something, not for the circumstances of my birth, but for the contributions I had made to society. Though Smith and Voltaire argued voraciously that my membership had more to do with my noble background, Franklin had assured me numerous times that my inclusion had everything to do with my past leadership as Director of the Russian Academy of Science. Now all that was slipping away.

"But," added Ben, "the attempt to save Mr. Bennett should not be ill thought of. As members of the Transcendent Society, we cannot be above the lives of those we purport to protect. We should and will put ourselves into danger, even if it means risking the greater good."

Smith's frown could have been the unhappy visage of a bulldog.

"And as Katerina argued, we now know more about the enemy we face." Ben turned to me. "Did you perchance detect how the creature stole Mr. Bennett's memories?"

"I'd arrived too late, I'm afraid. Mr. Bennett appeared like the others when I burst into the room," I said. "But on the creature's hand was a stone, a twin to the one on the gauntlet. Somehow a glimmering shield made of air protected it from my close range pistol shot and then the stone filled with an unearthly light and it created a shimmering hole, like a tear in the universe, which it stepped through, appearing at once in the yard."

"Useful information," said Ben, raising an eyebrow towards Smith.

Smith gave me an uneasy glance. "Why again did you think the creature was in the house?"

I explained my theory and the confirmation of it using talcum powder on the door handle.

"Deftly done, I suppose," said Smith afterwards.

Ben cocked a grin at Smith. "I told you we need her. She was the one that figured out that Mr. Bennett might be in danger."

"We need to double our efforts on the others," I said. "Now that it knows we're watching, it might try to finish what it started."

"We'll get to that in a moment, but first we need to decipher what the blazes it's trying to do," said Ben.

"What do you mean?" asked Smith. "Sewing chaos. Reducing the ability of our government to function. I don't agree much with Miss Dashkova, but I do agree with that point."

"I don't believe that's all it is," said Ben, rubbing the back of his head.

"Is this creature readying us for an invasion? How many others are there of its kind? Or has it been sent by a more worldly actor of this stage?" pondered Ben as he paced.

"I favor the latter," I said. "Napoleon will ever be restless while England surely harbors ill intentions for its former colony—"

"Why nothing of Russia?" asked Smith, the intent of his question as clear as a fart at a funeral. "Do you seek to mislead us? Despite your quick wit, I'm still watching you for signs of betrayal."

"If you would have let me finish, I would have spoken at length about the Russian Empire," I said. "If Emperor Paul is alive, we should consider him as a potential foe, for he is a nervous man built of many slights. If he's not alive, then until we know the head of the country, my advice is less valuable."

"Though we should not cross them off our list, I do not believe it is one of these, or if it is, they are being used," said Ben.

He and Smith shared a knowing glance. Immediately, my hackles rose as I made a connection previously missed. I clasped my hands tightly and addressed them both.

"You already know about the powers of the stone, don't you?" I asked, knowing the answer. I continued in the tone of an irritated schoolmarm. "Otherwise you would have questioned me further on that point. Am I to be privy to nothing?"

Ben made a halfhearted smile towards Smith. "Yes, we know what the stone can do, though we had no idea that it could work just by being on flesh, or maybe the gauntlet is meant to mimic the powers of that horrible creature."

"The portal ability as well?" I asked.

"That as well," he said. "Though we know not how to control it. Except for our ability to detect the use of its magic, we don't know how to make anything else happen, except by accident, which makes using it quite dangerous."

It was my turn to pace, as frustrations added up until even I couldn't remain still. They watched while I stomped back and forth, wishing I hadn't worn the dress. When it hit me, I was glad I didn't have my rapier, or I might have stabbed Ben in the leg, just to teach him a lesson about keeping secrets.

"You've had the gauntlet for more than a decade, haven't you?" I asked, further connections forming like spider webs.

Both Ben and Adam appeared stunned, open mouths gaping.

"The powder," I said. "You didn't come up with that formula yourself. It's from this other place, where the creature and the magic is coming from."

Ben gazed at me flatly, like a parent who'd had a surprise for their child spoiled.

"The magic isn't coming from there," he said. "It's everywhere—we just don't know how to access it."

Adam Smith puffed up as if to keep Ben from explaining, but Ben put his hand out, staying the disagreement before it could leave Smith's lips.

"Better that I fill in the rest of the picture than her getting the wrong idea," said Ben. "Ignorance of the details could doom us. She must know the danger we're all in."

Ben motioned for everyone to take a seat, which I did reluctantly, as the need to pace had not left my twitchy legs.

"The gauntlet was acquired nearly twenty years ago when I was in Paris. Voltaire and I were investigating a series of murders involving influential members of the third estate. At the time, we thought the killings were being propagated by the Crown, to silence the restless bourgeois that had only begun to awaken. How wrong we were," said Ben, gazing into the past.

I'd never seen him so uneasy, as if he'd remembered things he'd long tried to repress.

"The creature was using the gauntlet for the murders?" I asked.

Ben blinked heavily, screwed his mouth up in a frown, and then, seeming to finally realize I'd spoken, nodded. "Yes, yes. It was and we stopped it."

"What was it?" I asked.

A bit of darkness passed across Ben's eyes. "I'd rather not say. Better to leave it forgotten and concentrate on the present. There's nothing we can learn from that except what I've already told you."

When he said the words, his gaze flit to me, and I saw for a brief moment that there was something else important about those days, but he wasn't going to share it.

Then the darkness passed and he continued as if he'd never been bothered. "It was this event that led to the formation of the Transcendent Society, though we did not call it that until the night I accidently passed over to the other side."